Simple solutions for complex problems

As the discussion of what the States might do during a Constitutional convention has been kicked around for a few years and is getting some traction (as seen at Instapundit), here is a quick and simple amendment to consider:

Proposed Amendment

1)  All regulations shall be approved by a simple majority of Congress.

2) Any regulation may be removed by either house of Congress.

3) All legislation for all laws shall be reauthorized every ten years, to include all regulations.  All prior government laws and regulations shall be reauthorized on the final number year they were first instituted.

4) All directly granted bodies mentioned specifically in the Constitution are exempt from reauthorization.  All directly granted bodies are not exempt from regulatory reauthorization procedures.

This concept is known as a 'sunset' law that would sunset every provision ever passed by any Congress or regulatory body formed by Congress so that Congress must take active steps so as to re-affirm that these bodies and regulations are actually necessary.

The ability to get a simple majority in either body of Congress to strike down regulations should be enough to curb offending regulations.

Do note that this proposed Amendment is incorporated, in part, to the States so that every State gets a 'sunset' law.  It is up to the States to consider which bodies they have that pass laws so that the proper ten year sunset cycle is implemented in each State for State level concerns.

This will keep the US Congress and State legislative bodies very, very busy for a decade to clear out the backlog.  And anything that isn't reaffirmed goes away.  The default position of any government is that it only has power on approval of proper legislation passed and reaffirmed on a frequent basis.  Do note that this includes ALL government activities, and only those mandated by the US Constitution or State Constitutions must be kept, but their regulatory ability is also under scrutiny.

Sunshine is the best policy for transparency as a disinfectant.

Sunsets allow for old ideas to pass away and only those positively reaffirmed will survive any nightfall, others live like mayflies and die out very quickly, indeed.

Building a case

This post was originally presented at The Jacksonian Party.

The following is an opinion piece of The Jacksonian Party.

When the 13 Colonies sought to break with Great Britain they did so in a fashion that was quite unique: they utilized a bill of particulars in which Great Britain was not performing her sovereign tasks for her citizens in the Colonies or, even worse, was abusing powers of the State against the Colonies.  While the first portion of the Declaration of Independence  is well known as a succinct restatement of the rights of man as an individual and the duties man has to make government to suit his needs, the latter and more lengthy portion is a piece-by-piece description of what Great Britain was doing to her colonies that was out of order with what citizens expected from their government under the various Charters and Laws of Great Britain.

This portion of the Declaration doesn't sing to us as it is a plain and blunt statement of conditions and I will pick it up midway through the second paragraph:

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Each of those items is a transgression between the existing State and its citizens in the Colonies, and the Founders in writing the Declaration were giving a bill of particulars against the State to say exactly what the transgressions were.  These were not only violations of British Law but, in a number of cases, a violation of the Law of Nations that underpins all Nation States and the usurpation of that by any State is a movement of citizens from subjects of the law to mere objects of the State.  Not only was the State acting without regards to the law, it was acting in a lawless manner outside any known form of civilized obedience the State must demonstrate towards its people to be legitimate to them.  When that happens you have Tyranny and in this case it is headed up by a Tyrant.

This is an explicit exposition of what the British government had done, or not done in many circumstances, to warrant being called a Tyrant and worthy of being divorced from the people so that an accountable government could be stood up.  By taking up this path of the lawful requirements of the State to its people, the Founders created a unique document and understanding of just how to go about calling a National government to task when it ignores its duties.

Today there are rumblings of this sort coming from the States within the United States, calling to task the Federal government for what it is or is not doing in some areas that are primal to the rights of the individual States and the people to remain free with liberty:

1)  Gun laws -  This has been an ongoing concern of those wishing to disarm the populace and centralize all power into the Federal government.  When the Federal government had a high amount of trust after WWII, this notion could gain some traction, but when our trust in government declines we see a direct effect in support of more restrictive gun laws.  This from Gallup Poll of 08 APR 2009 that tracks the post-WWII period on this question:

Likewise Pew Research also examined this phenomena on 30 APR 2009, and saw the steady, long-term decline in support for gun control and restrictions on gun ownership from 1993 to present.  Amendment II to the Constitution supports the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and to form up voluntary militia to support themselves and their States.  This is considered one of the prime rights of the individual and is granted by the Law of Nature as a positive liberty (of self-defense) and by the Law of Nations as the positive liberty of protecting one's property.  It is a basic and fundamental human right and when infringed upon by any government it is an attempt to shift the power of the people of a Nation to be free from their hands and into the hands of their government.  Yet it is an inalienable right bestowed upon us by being creatures of Nature and as a positive bulwark against Tyranny for the protection of self and property.

Here I will take a paragraph from my Signposts article to describe this movement:

The expression of the fundamental and inalienable Rights of Man gains expression outside of direct politics but is having an effect.  It is along a pathway I talked about and have talked about in many areas: the ethical and responsible self-arming of citizens for the protection of themselves and society.  This has been written about in the San Diego Reader by Rosa Jurjevics, 15 JUL 2009 (H/t: Instapundit), which examines the Open Carry movement as seen in San Diego.  It is interesting that one of the last States in the Continental US to be the 'Wild West' still has those laws on the books, and folks at Calguns and California Open Carry are now putting their civil rights forward and protecting them in the harshest Progressive State in the Union.  While small this, too, is slowly permeating into the culture from its majority position after decades of authoritarian responses by government to civil firearms ownership.  Southern Maryland Shooters are helping to organize an Open Holster Day in Baltimore on 01 AUG 2009 to show that those who are responsible shooters are your friends and neighbors. The NRA is also running USA Carry for Open and Concealed Carry site to help bring social awareness to how important this civil right is in our communities across the Nation.

States vary on concealed carry laws from highly restrictive (NY, IL) to unrestricted (AK, AZ) to open carry freely (VA, NV).  The shift has been to move away from restrictions over the last decade and to a greater understanding that being armed is a civil right and that when practiced by citizens in a civil fashion it is a threat to no one.

Amendment II is incorporated into the States via Amendment XIV, so that States must, likewise, recognize the basic civil right of arms for the citizenry.  Thus when any State moves to the equivalent of complete exclusion of firearms to its citizens it is brought to task under not only Amendment II but Amendment XIV, as this as an explicitly protected right of the citizens of a State.  This includes the District of Columbia and the Heller decision is a first to strike down all-encompassing gun bans done at a local level.

 

2)  The Right of the State to Self-Defense via its Citizens.  The BATFE (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) was given a role in the checking of handgun purchases for criminal background at the National level.  And yet that is a purely State concern, where States are the prime determiner of what civil rights are allowed to convicted felons after conviction and having time served.  That is the work of the National government to tell the States what they must do with regards to those who have committed crimes or are mentally incapacitated with regards to firearms ownership.  And yet we also recognize that if an ex-con is trapped in a situation where he or she is threatened and they can gain access to a firearm for self-defense, then no court in the land will convict them as their basic civil right that is inalienable to them, the right of defending oneself, is paramount to all people.  Thus a law made without exceptions allowed can be nullified by a jury per trial, and this can indicated a class of individuals who may have actually returned to the bosom of society, recanted their ways and are trustworthy with carrying arms in their own defense.  If a trial by jury can remove such a right, why cannot an appeal to a jury get it re-instated?  Blanket laws from the Federal government are made to be 'One Size Fits All' but also comes with the caveat with such clothing 'Fits None Well'.  States are better suited to determining the safety of their citizens than the Federal government is as the States have local concerns, society and societal conditions which may obviate a general rule set down by the Federal government for a matter which has traditionally rested with the States.

This generalized rule system has now gotten push-back from a number of States which are pushing forward their own gun laws for firearms made inside their State for sale to its Citizens in the State.  Unlike other commerce this one is part of the State's sovereignty guaranteed in the US Constitution:

Article I, Section 10, paragraph iii:

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

And

Article IV, Section 4:

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened), against domestic Violence.

For the State to have the Sovereign Right to create an army or other forces accountable to it during times of war, invasion or in imminent Danger is one that is primal to the States.  The Federal government was not seen as a power structure to make all States give up their rights, but as a brokerage system between equals in federation with each other so that none were discriminated against by the whole of the Nation.  This is often referred to as a 'dormant right' of the States as it is not operational during any other time than those given.  Any law that undermines such rights is against what the States agreed to explicitly in the Constitution in the above areas.  The the right and accountability of bearing arms rests upon the individual and the State is to ensure that it is not infringed by the Federal government as that would jeopardize the State's implicit sovereignty of self-protection.

Montana started this with their new law challenging the Federal system.  Other States are joining or looking to join Montana in this: Tennessee, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho.

With this these States go right up against the ever expanding interpretation of the 'interstate commerce clause' of the US Contitution:

Article I, Section 8, paragraph iii:

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

Foreign States are mentioned, along with the Indian Tribes that were seen as sovereign entities, and thus they define that the States, too, are seen as sovereign entities so that the clause is one that addresses the same class of commerce as done between sovereign States.  If commerce between the several States was meant to be treated differently than commerce between sovereign States, then it would have been treated differently in the US Constitution.  And yet the expansion of this clause has intruded on commerce within Indian tribes and within States, thus can intrusion into foreign Nations be far behind?

An interesting part of the Heller decision comes from one of the amicus briefs presented by the Dept. of Justice on pp. 28-29 and I will bold parts of interest:

3. Congress Has Authority To Regulate The Manufacture, Sale, And Flow Of Firearms In Commerce

Licensing requirements such as those contained in the GCA (see p. 3, supra) generally do not present the same Second Amendment concerns as a direct prohibition on the possession of firearms by individuals. The Amendment’s text and history suggest that the Framers were more concerned with securing the right of individuals to “keep and bear Arms” than with limiting the government’s ability to regulate the manufacture or sale of such arms. Government restrictions on the importation and interstate transportation of firearms, see p. 3, supra, are even further afield from the Framers’ concerns. In addition, as in the context of other individual rights, regulation of firearm-related commercial activities may present distinct constitutional considerations. See, e.g., New York v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691 (1987) (recognizing exception to Fourth Amendment warrant requirement for administrative searches of certain business premises); Central Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Public Serv. Comm’n, 447 U.S. 557 (1980) (holding that commercial speech is entitled to reduced protection under the First Amendment). Accordingly, there is no basis here for questioning the constitutionality of the GCA’s licensing provisions or federal limits on importation or transport of firearms. In any event, this case, which involves private possession, provides no opportunity for the Court to expound on the different principles that might govern efforts to regulate the commercial trade in firearms.

Note this is a carefully worded paragraph that utilizes the Amendment II right, and not referencing other rights that States hold.  Even with that the 'distinct constitutional considerations' given the history of the Framers unconcern with interstate commerce of firearms would also demonstrate a lack of concern with intrastate commerce as being outside of their concerns as it is never mentioned in the Constitution.  It is rare to see a DoJ brief that lends support to the States for commerce not only between them but within them which directly goes against such concepts as presented in the Raich decision.  While DoJ does uphold the Gun Control Act throughout, the concept that the States are sovereign and could very well do as they please with firearms undercuts that reasoning instead of bolstering it.  Not only the Heller decision and the opinions for it, but a few of the amicus briefs offer a venue for the States (separately) to move away from government control of intra-state firearms production and sales.

 

3)  Health care.  I have written on this topic numerous times.  Suffice it to say that for the first time in US history to be born inside the US requires a commercial transaction to get health care insurance or be fined.  To be born is to be fined.

Yet we are born, free.

Very strange how we have survived from 1776 to 2010 without that bit of purchasing forced on us as citizens.

There are 36 States looking to pass Health Care Freedom acts including Virginia, Idaho which have already done so.

The imposition of mandatory purchases or punishment of a product from birth is something far outside of any 'right' and is the decision of an authoritarian State upon citizens it no longer perceives as citizens or even subjects.

 

4) Immigration.  Arizona has passed as of 23 APR 2010 an immigration law giving its law enforcement personnel the ability to inquire into the citizenship status of individuals to enforce Federal immigration laws.  Each State has the expectation to equal application and protection under the law and that the Federal government will not shirk its duties.  This is not a call to 'immigration reform' but a call for the US government to do its damned job.

It is also an implicit statement of State sovereignty under the Constitution.  This starts as an Article IV, Section 4 call but has, implicit in it the abrogation of Federal duties in law enforcement for the Nation via armed criminal gangs that are moving into Arizona and other States.  This is the 'wake-up call' as the next step is an Article I, Section 10, para iii call which would be a 'no confidence' measure to the US government.  No State does these things lightly as they are part start to create a bill of particulars by the States against the Federal government.

It is building a case against the Federal government, piecemeal: a bit on individual rights, a bit on intrastate commerce, a bit on authoritarianism forcing commercial trade or penalizing citizens from birth, and a call to enforce the border.  If the government says that it can't figure out how many illegals there are in the country and can't do its job protecting the Nation as a whole, then what faith can the citizens have with it in something like health care?  Or firearms?

We expect National government to uphold the Nation as a whole, not in its parts, and when it can't do that job it does begin to break apart at the seams.  The more intrusive and less capable government becomes, the more it reaches for power on the basis of authority willingly vested in it.  When the willing no longer vest their trust in that common project, then no power can restore it, save for government to go back to what it must do, and shed these things that have lost it trust in all regards across the board.

For the people and the States are building a case against the US government.

A very civil case, yes, as we are a very civil people.

But a case nonetheless.

Green lights and the common man

Yet another in my commentaries left elsewhere that I'm turning into a blog post. This time it is from Hot Air and the examination of how LED traffic bulbs in cold temperature ranges do NOT melt snow off the facing of the traffic light, thus causing wintertime death and mayhem at intersections.

As always I am presenting my commentary 'as-is' with no refinements, no spell checking, no changes in syntax and all other defects in logic just as they are for the amusement of any readers.

Remember this is personal experiences that I am recounting and YMMV.

Yesterday was the last day for complaints.

The commentary:

In some places in my home CFLs will not last a month, while their incandescent brothers will last nearly a year. That happens in the kitchen where the bulbs are exposed to the vagaries of what goes on in the atmoshpere there. Other replacements in floor lamps and bedside lamps, plus in bathrooms is telling that similar story, and I’ve given four different brands a try-out across all of them and incandescents last longer.

Overhead recessed lighting with protectors around the CFL bulb last over 8 years. But then the incandescents haven’t had to be swapped out in the same fixture type in the same room over that period, which is a replacement rate test I have going on down in the basement back room. So that is a wash.

An outside CFL bulb I put in nearly 6 years ago has lived longer than any of its incandescent counterparts, which lasted barely a year. But then that is a hardened, protected CFL with special dome around it for nasty weather. It is in a fixture that can only be covered if we get 8′ snow drifts, and if that happens I’m shipping the shoveled snow to Al Gore.

Thus my experience is telling me that the bare bulb CFLs are pretty much a dead loss save in fixtures not exposed to much internal environmental change and low usage rates.

Totally enclosed CFLs seem to have a longer life, but their up-front cost is much higher, and only for hard to reach lighting is that worth it (the outdoors fixture or recessed lighting).

I’m a tech person and love LEDs. Just not at their current pricing. CFLs are not battle tested, stress tested and otherwise made to handle the rigors that over a century of trail and error has gotten modern incandescents, and the things just can’t handle exposure to even mild inside environment changes without having that protective shell on them. And those cost more than bare bulb CFLs. Then the question of lifetime replacement cost comes into play… and the amount paid for a protected bulb is nearly equal to their incandescent replacements and minimal energy savings. Mind you Congress feels it has the wisdom to know exactly what I need in all conditions, at all times, for all purposes. There is a cost to over-riding consumer choice and this one will get you a larger mercury handling problem plus increased mercury in the environment due to CFL bulb breakage.

Thus the Green folks love mercury in the environment.

Good job!

Do CFLs last longer?

That is a 'Theory and Practice Conundrum' question.

In theory, under lab conditions and no changes in atmospherics, then YES CFLs do last longer than incandescent lights.

In practice, it depends upon such a wide range of variables from environmental conditions (indoor/outdoor), humidity, house wiring, humidity, and how well the bulb is protected that one cannot say, across-the-board, that theory is correct.

Theory is a fine thing to have, but it should be built on statistical evidence for real-world applications and not upon lab conditions. Many medications work perfectly well in lab conditions, and yet we have a plethora of regimes for testing such medications on larger populations to find out the effects and side-effects of them and even WITH that some godawful medications get to the shelves because they can't test on 10 million people for 10 years and have a viable medicine that is profitable... or even unprofitable come to think of it due to the sunk costs involved. And would you really put up with a fatal or critical disease that has a medication that has demonstrated itself on sub 100,000 populations and yet was still going through the 10 million/10 year test before general release?

CFLs have had NONE of that rigor and they are STILL getting feedback from consumers on their ability, or lack thereof, to stand up to household use. Same goes for LEDs which, all for being solid state, have their own inherent problems which can only be fixed by long-term marketplace use and THEY haven't gone through rigorous testing like we would apply to medications. I don't expect there to be any negative effects of EMF or other stuff from either CFL or LED lighting, but then no one expects that of cellphones, either, and they are only getting long-term use testing due to having so many people using them for so long that any effects can show up... and yet a few years of medical level testing might have shown there to be a problem, say, a decade ago. Which would have delayed their introduction and uptake, of course... yet for a non-medical device that uses power at a greater rate than many medical devices (say, pacemakers or diabetic insulin pumps) and sit right next to the body we get LESS testing for one sort of electronic device and MORE for another based on application.

Yet they all use electrical power in different ways and at various levels of intrusiveness for different periods of time, and someone having a cellphone with them as close as an insulin pump really is not in a different use regime, just a different comfort zone that may or may not be indicated by the purported safety of the device and its underlying regulations. You see, the regulations weren't made to cover medical effects from cellphones and were done in an era of intermittent exposure to certain types of radiation. Does this mean we need newer and better regulations?

Not necessarily.

Better and more thorough testing, yes, and then documenting the effects seen and having them available to a wider research community would be far, far better than regulations that are out of date in days, months, weeks or years. I would rather have commercial testing facilities employing some medical labs to help research effects of equipment than have some bureaucrat who may not be an expert in the field draft up regulations that then have to be applied by non-experts, with those regulations only covering certain phenomena in a limited regimen so that any different effects of different use are MISSED. That gives you an unwarranted feeling of comfort, seeing all those regulatory standards that a piece of equipment passes, and then you go out and use that equipment far out of the regulatory schema for those standards and have the temerity to complain when you get medical conditions stemming from that use... and you can't sue a damned soul as it was your sorry lack of knowledge of the standards that led you to have a false sense of safety. Of course after a number of incidents we will get NEW standards that give a NEW false sense of safety. And employs more bureaucrats, too.

I really don't care if CFLs or LEDs meet US, EU, Japanese or other standards. I want them to work in common household environments for a given set of time so that the investment in them ISN'T wasted and putting more mercury into the trash/recycling system. That would mean throwing out the 'but they live longer and use less energy' trope and getting real world, stress tested bulbs that are guaranteed BY THEIR MANUFACTERER to be useful in a given set of conditions, last an average set of time given standard and accepted norms for household wiring.

To do that means you move from a regulatory paradigm to a guaranteed use/indemnity paradigm and being able to show that YOUR use of anything is within the given and set conditions of the manufacturer and that you are not to blame for using things in an asinine way.

Which would you rather have:

1) A regulatory system that gives you a false sense of security and allows you to sue a manufacturer for a medication that has MET all federal health and safety guidelines, or,

2) A system in which a manufacturer has a set loss indemnity policy for medications so that those that come down with known and persistent side-effects, including those that cause disability, loss of body function or death, have a complete coverage for those cases to care for the disabled and sick due to their lack of testing.

Which do you think would stem class action suits better, as a system, by causing them not to happen?

We have chosen the first route, and yet the second would have cost companies far, far more and put insurance companies on the hook to make sure that manufacturers have actually tested medications out widely and deeply enough to ensure that the common side-effects are well known and the critical, life altering ones also known.

You get better information with the second than the first because of more rigorous testing for actual use, not test use. Standards for basic tests on overdosing and such would be done with them, as they are now, so that even intentional mis-use would be understood. Little known side effects have a hard time in both, but in the latter a single lawsuit can ruin a company's reputation, while in the former things have to get bad enough on a wide enough scale to get ANY attention.

Currently we have so many government regulations with so little oversight that anyone purchasing damned near anything can't trust the health/safety/use information, and individual cases get those lovely warning stickers festooned to everything, which you then blithely ignore. This is a high overhead system, with definite problems to get manufacturing changes done save on the class-action basis, and regulatory reform just adds more regulations to an overburdened regime.

We would be better off where the assumption is that YOU, the poor user, actually KNOWS what you are doing with anything and that when something goes wrong in your use you need to demonstrate that the device failed WITHIN the manufacturer's guidelines, and when you use a folding step ladder to fully extend it to a roof beyond all safety limitations of the manufacturer that you, not the manufacturer, is the one at fault for NOT THINKING about what you were doing.

As it is you assume the manufacturer has made objects/devices/medicines to work far outside their tested area and when you do something asinine you feel that the manufacturer is at fault for your unwillingness to read the five or ten page document that tells the exacting limitations of the device/object/medication. And you constantly pray that some overworked bureaucrat a decade ago had any idea of how the use of devices would change a decade later when they are made to do things and be used in ways never imagined then.

In theory that might work.

In practice it is a piss poor way to do things and not require demonstrated safety for new objects/devices/medication in a constantly changing use environment.

You can decide where you place your safety.

Do you really trust those standards labels to mean anything?

A lot of medications get through FDA screening with harmful side-effects and drug interaction problems, and no doctor can keep track of all the interactions for all the medications for all the patients they have. Do you feel safe in that?

Do you feel that you are doing a good 'Green' job when you experiment with CFLs or LEDs that have not had rigorous, long-term, real-world testing to see how they stand up for both longevity and electricity use? Not to speak of light output, of course.

Do you like the idea that government is actually 'looking out for you' when it is only trying to follow more regulations than can be documented by any organization on the planet? Even the regulators don't know all the regulations, any more, and the actual criminal penalties become so vague that you can't even figure them out IF you can find them.

That is called living by The Law of Rules.

It didn't work so hot for the USSR.

We were supposed to live under The Rule of Law.

But then we used to be superior to the USSR.

Soon whatever isn't prohibited will be mandatory.

And you will have no liberty left to speak of, as you will not be allowed to speak about it.

That might 'hurt' someone, which is discriminatory and will be prohibited.

And you become a slave to government which ministers to you like any benevolent slave owner does.

Don't mind the whip,now.

It is what you have asked for when you ask for so many rules.

You wish to be ruled, not governed, and ruled you shall be.

How the reasoning is tortured

Yes, we do indeed hear how inflicting a feeling of drowning without the fact of it is 'torture'!  Indeed, the triumph of the stupidity happens when such a thing is put forward as what is done is to give a feeling of drowning, not the actual drowning in and of itself.  Are we to castigate and litigate upon those sanctioned to do such things for the professed reason of saving their fellow countrymen from harm and, indeed, their Nation?  If we are a Nation of laws then we must also recognize that we operate from the Law of Nations first and foremost so we can understand the context of our laws amongst Nations.

This would seem straightforward, but it isn't taught in school anymore, and so we have the mighty bellowing from on-high about things that are without reason, without basis and, indeed, implore us to be so civilized as to be decadent in our response to those seeking to exterminate our lives.

Thus to understand what it is that we are to do against those that seek to make war upon us that are not any Nation and have no sanction from any Nation, we must turn to the Law of Nations, first, to understand just what they are.  Only after we know that can we then proceed to see if our laws are in accord with the Law of Nations and that those doing this feeling of drowning activity to those attacking us are doing something unworthy or noble.  To do that I now turn to Book III of Law of Nations:

§ 34. Na-

Nations that are always ready to take up arms on any prospect of advantage, are lawless robbers: but those who seem to delight in the ravages of war, who spread it on all sides, without reasons or pretexts, and even without any other motive than their own ferocity, are monsters, unworthy the name of men. They should be considered as enemies to the human race, in the same manner as, in civil society, professed assassins and incendiaries are guilty, not only towards the particular victims of their nefarious deeds, but also towards the state, which therefore proclaims them public enemies. All nations have a right to join in a confederacy for the purpose of punishing and even exterminating those savage nations. Such were several German tribes mentioned by Tacitus — such those barbarians who destroyed the Roman empire: nor was it till long after their conversion to Christianity that this ferocity wore off. Such have been the Turks and other Tartars — Genghis Khan, Timur Bec or Tamerlane, who, like Attila, were scourges employed by the wrath of Heaven, and who made war only for the pleasure of making it. Such are, in polished ages and among the most civilized nations, those supposed heroes, whose supreme delight is a battle, and who make war from inclination purely, and not from love to their country.

This section is from the part on warfare and who makes it and how and I am using boldface to highlight passages.

What we see is that terrorists do, indeed, fit into the category of those who have delight in war for the reason that they want to world to follow their beliefs and put them into the top position over mankind.  These are monsters, ravagers and they become a public enemy (true enemies of the public beyond mere law breaking), and also wage war upon all Nations.  This is the point that vexes so many:  policing and warmaking are not 'either/or' against these, but BOTH and to the extreme.  We are to end their exploits, these monsters in human form, even unto exterminating all who follow them to the last man.  We do not do that in fury or hatred, but to bring justice to them in the only way they know.  We do not profess blood lust to kill a rat or a mad dog.  In fact in the latter if it was a beloved animal gone mad, we do it in grieving that one being that we loved had gone sick by the way of nature and needed to be removed so as not to harm us or our fellow man.  In sorrow we kill, but that does not stop us from doing the deed as it is necessary.  It is Just.

Why do we distinguish between those who make war that are not Nations and those who are Nations?  Again in Book III:

§ 67. It is to be distinguished from informal and unlawful war.

Legitimate and formal warfare must be carefully distinguished from those illegitimate and informal wars, or rather predatory expeditions, undertaken either without lawful authority or without apparent cause, as likewise without the usual formalities, and solely with a view to plunder. Grotius relates several instances of the latter.⁵ Such were the enterprises of the grandes compagnies which had assembled in France during the wars with the English, — armies of banditti, who ranged about Europe, purely for spoil and plunder: such were the cruises of the buccaneers, without commission, and in time of peace; and such in general are the depredations of pirates. To the same class belong almost all the expeditions of the Barbary corsairs: though authorized by a sovereign, they are undertaken without any apparent cause, and from no other motive than the lust of plunder. These two species of war, I say, — the lawful and the illegitimate, — are to be carefully distinguished, as the effects and the rights arising from each are very different.

§ 68. Grounds of this distinction.

In order fully to conceive the grounds of this distinction, it is necessary to recollect the nature and object of lawful war. It is only as the last remedy against obstinate injustice that the law of nature allows of war. Hence arise the rights which it gives, as we shall explain in the sequel: hence, likewise, the rules to be observed in it. Since it is equally possible that either of the parties may have right on his side, — and since, in consequence of the independence of nations, that point is not to be decided by others (§ 40), — the condition of the two enemies is the same, while the war lasts. Thus, when a nation, or a sovereign, has declared war against another sovereign on account of a difference arisen between them, their war is what among nations is called a lawful and formal war; and its effects are, by the voluntary law of nations, the same on both sides, independently of the justice of the cause, as we shall more fully show in the sequel.⁶ Nothing of this kind is the case in an informal and illegitimate war, which is more properly called depredation. Undertaken without any right, without even an apparent cause, it can be productive of no lawful effect, nor give any right to the author of it. A nation attacked by such sort of enemies is not under any obligation to observe towards them the rules prescribed in formal warfare. She may treat them as robbers,^(146a) The inhabitants of Geneva, after defeating the famous attempt to take their city by escalade,⁷ caused all the prisoners whom they took from the Savoyards on that occasion to be hanged up as robbers, who had come to attack them without cause and without a declaration of war. Nor were the Genevese censured for this proceeding, which would have been detested in a formal war.

As we have seen, plunder is but one object of illegitimate war and it can be waged for no other reason that those doing so enjoy it.  From that these actions do not gain the opprobrium legitimate war making, but are forms of predation carried out by monsters.

Warfare is a liberty and has a positive and negative aspect to it, but the liberty itself is granted to us at birth: it comes from the Law of Nature and is never separated from us.  In society to create the State and then the Nation, we invest our negative liberty of warfare, that is offensive warfare for the society and even the positive social liberty of defensive warfare, to the State and Nation.  We do that so that we are not forever plagued by warfare that others drag us into within society.  With that said we retain the positive aspect of warfare, that of personal defense, defense of family and defense of property for ourselves and can even reclaim defense of society with our fellow citizens when neither State nor Nation respond to invasion or even simple danger that puts society at risk.  This, then, civilizes warfare as we have removed it from the purely personal realm for offensive means and societal defense, although not entirely for the latter as it reverts back to us when with our fellow man and our higher social organs do not respond to attacks.

When we are attacked by those who reclaim all liberty of warfare to themselves and even create an organization to do this, they are using this as a form of depredation to work their will.  They have no right to do so, and thus no cause put forward by them is Just.  When we are attacked by such individuals, all laws and rules of warfare and society may be placed aside as we are to bring these monsters down with extreme prejudice against them for taking these acts against us.  Things which we would look aghast on in normal warfare or in the warm bosom of a Nation at peace can be done when we are attacked by predatory men.  None think the worse of us to defend ourselves and ensure that we are defended to the utmost.

It is here that the problems of those citing waterboarding as 'torture' run afoul of the real world: we have been attacked by predatory men, continue to be attacked by them and are exerting extreme prejudice to bring them down as they have attacked us to kill us with no warrant, no sanction and for no Just reason at all.  In reclaiming their full liberty of warfare, they have become human predators, monsters of unreason.  Any that do so, no matter how sweet and kind their words, betray themselves by their actions which demonstrate they are the enemy of all mankind.  They seek to overturn all law, all justice, all resistance and enslave us all to their will.  It does not matter if they have the direct means to do so, their demonstration of limited means shows they are trying to get better means as, before that, they had NONE.

Thus we follow in Book III:

§ 69. Who is an enemy.⁽¹⁴⁷⁾

THE enemy is he with whom a nation is at open war. The Latins had a particular term (Hostis) to denote a public enemy, and distinguished him from a private enemy (Inimicus). Our language affords but one word for these two classes of persons, who ought, nevertheless to be carefully distinguished. A private enemy is one who seeks to hurt us, and takes pleasure in the evil that befalls us. A public enemy forms claims against us, or rejects ours, and maintains his real or pretended rights by force of arms. The former is never innocent; he fosters rancour and hatred in his heart. It is possible that the public enemy may be free from such odious sentiments, that he does not wish us ill, and only seeks to maintain his rights. This observation is necessary in order to regulate the dispositions of our heart towards a public enemy.

Private enemies are inimical to us: they hate us and attack us with no just cause.

When it is a Nation, that is unjust and unlawful war.  When it is an individual waging war on their own, it is the depredation done by a predator.

These are not pleasant terms to use as we are so used to our fellow man understanding what law is and why it is important, and that respect for these things we create called 'Nations' means that we can set aside some negative liberties to be held by that creation to protect us so that we do not descend into becoming lawless creatures.  Indeed, Thomas Jefferson with editing help by Ben Franklin expressed, clearly, how we build up these things, and they clearly cite what the Law of Nature is with respect to us:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

There, clearly stated, is that the powers of earth are to be used as a gift derived from the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God, to which we are all entitled.  The laws of earth are something we create from the Laws of Nature, and thus, in that deriving, we create something for ourselves in this earthly realm.

Those that rend the laws of earth asunder to return to the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God are moving back from this creation, therefore, and no longer a part of this community we create.  These men recognize that within the very next part where they speak of this.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

We are all, indeed, endowed with the gifts of the Laws of Nature in FULL.  And we use those gifts to pursue life, liberty and happiness for ourselves.  This is a self-evident truth that the pursuit of these things is a result of us being natural beings of the earth.  But we cannot do that as natural man living in a State of Nature, for there is only the Law of Nature there which is the seeking for oneself these things, and not with anyone else.  When we return to that state of being that is where we go, to give up the laws of earth we only have those gifts given to all mankind, that of Nature.  We cannot secure these gifts alone: to create security we must do something.

That is spoken of next:

--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

We create something beyond ourselves, and join with our fellow man in doing that.  To share a culture, history and set of agreed upon ideals we become a people and we create something to help govern us so as to secure our liberties and that is government.  Further, to protect our society and ourselves, a government must derive its just powers from the consent of the governed.  One of these things we do to create this sovereign power amongst us, for it is ours to create as the laws of earth, is to invest our negative liberties in it so we may keep watch over them and see that our fellow man abides by this.

Stepping back to Book III in Law of Nations, there is this passage:

§ 3. Right of making war.⁽¹³⁶⁾

In treating of the right to security (Book II. Chap. IV.), we have shown that nature gives men a right to employ force, when it is necessary for their defence, and for the preservation of their rights. This principle is generally acknowledged: reason demonstrates it; and nature herself has engraved it on the heart of man. Some fanatics indeed, taking in a literal sense the moderation recommended in the gospel, have adopted the strange fancy of suffering themselves to be massacred or plundered, rather than oppose force to violence. But we need not fear that this error will make any great progress. The generality of mankind will, of themselves, guard against its contagion — happy, if they as well knew how to keep within the just bounds which nature has set to a right that is granted only through necessity! To mark those just bounds, — and, by the rules of justice, equity, and humanity, to moderate the exercise of that harsh, though too often necessary right — is the intention of this third book.

Nature gives us the right to employ force in self-defense so as to preserve our rights.

Do notice that the problem of those wishing to take to heart the extreme literal teachings of the gospel want to suffer plunder, depredation and massacre rather than employ violence to defend themselves.  de Vattel does not mince words when he calls them 'fanatics' as they are that: devoted to a cause without using reason.  There must be bounds to the teachings in the gospel, for they do not tell you to become a slave to warlords, killers, pirates, brigands, thieves and those wishing to maraud against you like animals.  To prescribe that those who give up the laws of earth are to be ENTITLED to them is a fanatical position: to do so no longer makes one civilized, but fanatical at removing the reason behind having society and Nation to have such laws.

From there we go on to see where we put our negative liberty of warfare for ourselves and society:

§ 4. It belongs only to the sovereign power.⁽¹³⁷⁾

As nature has given men no right to employ force, unless when it becomes necessary for self defence and the preservation of their rights (Book II. § 49, &c.), the inference is manifest, that, since the establishment of political societies, a right, so dangerous in its exercise, no longer remains with private persons except in those encounters where society cannot protect or defend them. In the bosom of society, the public authority decides all the disputes of the citizens, represses violence, and checks every attempt to do ourselves justice with our own hands. If a private person intends to prosecute his right against the subject of a foreign power, he may apply to the sovereign of his adversary, or to the magistrates invested with the public authority: and if he is denied justice by them, he must have recourse to his own sovereign, who is obliged to protect him. It would be too dangerous to allow every citizen the liberty of doing himself justice against foreigners; as, in that case, there would not be a single member of the state who might not involve it in war. And how could peace be preserved between nations, if it were in the power of every private individual to disturb it? A right of so momentous a nature, — the right of judging whether the nation has real grounds of complaint, whether she is authorized to employ force, and justifiable in taking up arms, whether prudence will admit of such a step, and whether the welfare of the state requires it, — that right, I say, can belong only to the body of the nation, or to the sovereign, her representative. It is doubtless one of those rights, without which there can be no salutary government, and which are therefore called rights of majesty (Book I. § 45).

Thus the sovereign power alone is possessed of authority to make war. But, as the different rights which constitute this power, originally resident in the body of the nation, may be separated or limited according to the will of the nation (Book I. § 31 and 45), it is from the particular constitution of each state, that we are to learn where the power resides, that is authorized to make war in the name of the society at large. The kings of England, whose power is in other respects so limited, have the right of making war and peace.¹ Those of Sweden have lost it. The brilliant but ruinous exploits of Charles XII. sufficiently warranted the states of that kingdom to reserve to themselves a right of such importance to their safety.

We cannot have this right to ourselves if we wish to have society: they cannot co-exist, and one must put aside this right to HAVE society.  They return to us, fully, when we are attacked and our organs of society called government cannot or WILL NOT defend us.  We are not divorced from these rights, they are born in us all in equal measure and it is only when we set aside the use of these rights to cooperate with our fellow man do we gain the boon of comradeship and some security.  When any person takes up the personal, in-born rights and no longer sets them aside, they are saying that they wish not to have a society WITH US.  If we extend the hand of friendship and goodness to them, they have already spurned it by not only walking away from society but, then, in exercising these rights against our fellow man.

There is no due process of law that we can give them.

They have taken up the merciless position of war for themselves and spurn societies and Nation to work their ways using the means of warfare.  Even the tribes they exploit when they are from foreign soils, recognize that those in the tribe invest the negative liberty of warfare in the tribe, to be moderated by the whole, and those that seek to fight on their own do not have the support of those abiding by the common society.  To fight alone is not 'glorious' it is a horror as only animals will do that or those so threatened as to have no other recourse than to viciously assert their rights to be free of oppression.

When we invest these negative liberties in government to protect us all it gains majesty.  Not only is this part of the act of making it a sovereign government, but we elevate it to demonstrate that we will not commit wanton acts of warfare as that dissolves the majesty of our endeavor.  Without that government given our the use of our liberties and our agreement to not use them we, a government would have no majesty but would not exist.  Thus taking the right to wage war on our own is to dissolve our connection to majesty and when we seek to give mercy to those who have no endowment, no capability to invest their liberty and right to use it in something higher than themselves, we elevate Nature's beasts to that of Nations.  And yet that is what so many call for, to raise bestial man up to 'due process of law' and, thusly, not increase the stature of the law but corrode it as we now believe that monsters can be given mercy.

From that digression we can no go forward in understanding with Jefferson and his editor Franklin:

--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. 

Whenever government becomes destructive of the ends of civil society, whenever it abuses that society and uses that investment of negative liberties meant to protect us to undermine society, then that government can be changed or abolished by the people.  Government is to utilize the means we give it to protect us, not dictate to us.  When we seek to invest 'good' things, positive liberty that is the sole domain of the people INTO government, we act in an ill way towards ourselves.  When we seek to have government address those who have attacked the government and who show no willingness to be tried by civil means and civil authority, the remedy that must be sought is martial not civil on its own.

Going to war against a Nation (be it offensive or defensive war) requires us to give quarter and mercy on the battlefield.  For those abridging the law of nations, however, we learn this:

§ 141. A particular case, in which quarter may be refused.

There is, however, one case in which we may refuse to spare the life of an enemy who surrenders, or to allow any capitulation to a town reduced to the last extremity. It is, when that enemy has been guilty of some enormous breach of the law of nations, and particularly when he has violated the laws of war. This refusal of quarter is no natural consequence of the war, but a punishment for his crime, — a punishment which the injured party has a right to inflict. But, in order that it be justly inflicted, it must fall on the guilty. When we are at war with a savage nation, who observe no rules, and never give quarter, we may punish them in the persons of any of their people whom we take, (these belonging to the number of the guilty.) and endeavour, by this rigorous proceeding, to force them to respect the laws of humanity. But, wherever severity is not absolutely necessary, clemency becomes a duty. Corinth was utterly destroyed for having violated the law of nations in the person of the Roman ambassadors. That severity, however, was reprobated by Cicero and other great men. He who has even the most just cause to punish a sovereign with whom he is in enmity, will ever incur the reproach of cruelty, if he causes the punishment to fall on his innocent subjects. There are other methods of chastising the sovereign, — such as depriving him of some of his rights, taking from him towns and provinces. The evil which thence results to the nation at large, is the consequence of that participation which cannot possibly be avoided by those who unite in political society.

Even against savage Nations we are to ensure that this justice falls upon them with equanimity so that they learn to respect the laws of humanity, the laws of earth.  That is for those who fall within a Nation that has savage rulers, when there is no National support, no way to hold a government and its people accountable, such as the case when man takes back all his liberties and dissolves his connections with our human laws, there is no sovereign to impress, no Nation to demonstrate what the laws of warfare and humanity actually MEAN.  If there were we would give it, to avoid untold bloodshed.  For those that take prisoners only to behead them, defile them, and otherwise utilize them against all the laws of humanity and have no Nation to which to protest their actions, then they have offered us only one response in warfare: no quarter.

What we do not gain is respect from other Nations when we do: we gain their derision because we cannot distinguish between civilized man and bestial man.  When we do offer mercy for the mere need to protect our fellow citizens, and then seek to hand such over to the Nations where they came from, is it any wonder those Nations look askance at us?  Why should THEY clean up for crimes committed against US?  Why should they take in a bestial man when it is our right and duty to ensure that such never becomes a threat to humanity AGAIN?  When we find such monsters off the battlefield preparing for yet another odious attack, we can subject them to civil law, but only at our peril.  To advocate for it is not to seek international law but international lawlessness as it is advocating placing Natural Law on par with human law, earthly law, which we create to protect us from that self-same Natural Law.

Then, when the easy appeals to why the respect of the rule of law falls on deaf ears for those that have abdicated any recognition of the right of a society to have civil law, we hear the grand appeal to another and lesser area of international law on the Universal Declaration of Human rights.  It is, indeed, a lofty thing as treaties go, but it is a treaty: subordinate to the law of nations, itself, and secondary to any internal law of those individual Nations.  It is not an over-arching document of appeal for every human on the planet as that treaty requires adherence to it so as to get the 'rights' it outlines.  Those who claim to use the treaty to back themselves up have, clearly, not read it, as the very last article is thusly given:

Article 30.

Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

Yes you do not get the right to act in a barbaric fashion from this treaty, and when you aim at the destruction of those freedoms and rights you do not get the protection of this treaty.  As articles go it is a negation one: you don't get the right to destroy what is set up therein.  Thus, to do those acts you have stepped away from the protections of it.  If you wanted those protections you would act in a fashion to uphold it, but by not doing so those that take such actions cannot be given the sanctuary of it as it is reserved for those in civil society who obey the laws of their Nation and the law of nations.

From that, international law offers no safe haven.  Nor can any treaty or convention on warfare as those that work to dissolve the harmony of Nations put themselves outside the protection of the civil laws and laws of war and peace.  I do not say that in a mean spirited way, in fact that is a most distressing thing to me, beyond measure, that our fellow man would return to a bestial state and not uphold civilization.  They have moved to the tender mercies of the Law of Nature, red in tooth and claw, recognize this and expect no other in return.  Would that some Nation had done this so we could repatriate these people to that Nation after a war, but they have dissolved those bonds by their own actions.  Even KSM has complained that the 'rights' he is due have slowed the process of justice for him, as he knows the conclusion of that and is able to cite speedy remedy to us, his captors, as a great boon for those in his state of confinement.  When a beast tells us we are too civilized, that we are tripping over ourselves to show mercy to a beast who expects none, then it is not our actions that are at fault, but our inability to attend to our duty as a Nation to protect our citizens and the citizens of all Nations from those who take up vile Personal war against us.

If KSM can recognize this how can we not do so?

§ 183. An unjust war gives no right whatever.

HE who is engaged in war derives all his right from the justice of his cause. The unjust adversary who attacks or threatens him, — who withholds what belongs to him, — in a word, who does him an injury, — lays him under the necessity of defending himself, or of doing himself justice, by force of arms; he authorizes him in all the acts of hostility necessary for obtaining complete satisfaction. Whoever therefore takes up arms without a lawful cause, can absolutely have no right whatever: every act of hostility that he commits is an act of injustice.

He knows what he is due, and in chiding us, the predator tells his prey that their duty is killing them by not putting him away forever.

Yes we do, indeed, hear cries of how bad torture is against these predators.

They are right in that we do no mercy in letting such predators live, save when they can give us information to save the lives of our fellow man who live under the laws of earth and man.  When those we capture decry that we are taking too long to do anything to them, they know their position in this order of things, while those wanting them treated 'nicely' do not.  Those who take up arms against us for themselves, under no guise of sovereignty, have no right whatsoever that they can appeal to nor NONE that can be given to them.  They avow the injustice of all things not of the Law of Nature and disdain them all in their actions which follow their lethal intents predicted by their horrific words.  They follow through on their promises to us, and recognize that we have a duty to remove them from the fold of human laws all together, and permanently.

When we quail at the thought of putting down a rabid dog who was once our beloved pet, we, too, will feel heartbreaking sickness that we must now put an end to a once loyal companion.  That companion once knew of our relationship and the law of it between us and them, but Nature has interceded between us.  Those that remove that barrier and recede into the Laws of Nature have but themselves to blame for what they do, and cannot appeal to illness.  They could hold themselves accountable and give themselves up to civil authority to be judged.  They could do that and step back into the fold of humanity to be judged by us.  When they are dragged from their 'safe houses' and 'spider holes' they are not seeking that from us.  Would that these were mere normal criminals transgressing mere civil law, but they aren't.  They have dissolved that tie between themselves and civilization to return to Law of Nature.  They can always return to be tried by us for their predatory crimes against us and receive that due process that all who respect the law of nations are due.

They can start acting civilized whenever they want and do so.

After being captured it is far too late to give them that gift they have spurned and scorned.

The duty of our government and Nation are clear on that, and the determination that they make unlawful war against us is all that is necessary.

The judgement penalty are given.

KSM knows that and accepts it.

Once we are too civilized to do our duty to ourselves, then we are truly lost and will soon be just like him.

And the monsters will have won.

What are Tea Parties?

The following is a white paper of The Jacksonian Party.

What are Tea Parties?

Well, this is pretty simple: Tea Parties are gatherings of Americans to protest high government spending and the impoverishment of the American people to get through a minor economic recession.

A look at the signs being held up by the protesters reveals an interesting panorama of thought going on behind them, here at the recent Cincinnati Tea Party as seen by pictures sent into Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit:

From a linked article at the Cincinnati Enquirer on 15 MAR 2009 we have this:

The group wants Congress to repeal the $787 billion stimulus package that President Barack Obama has championed as a way to create jobs and give the economy a boost.

“The thought of all this spending makes me angry,” Frost said. “I’m tired of being angry.”

Other protesters wore Revolutionary-era costumes, sported “Got Tea?” shirts and raised signs with messages like, “Give us Liberty, not debt” and “No more bailouts.”

“There is a movement going on in this country,” said former U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot. “You can see it here today.”

Sean Lynch of Colerain Township brought his children . His 8-year-old, Isabel, held a “Stop spending my allowance” sign, and 5-year-old Kate raised one that read “Stay out of my piggy bank.”

“I’m frustrated with the way things are going in Congress. They need to remember that they work for us, and right now, we don’t approve,” Lynch said as he propped up a sign for his son Charlie, 2.

“This is not a Democrat thing or a Republican thing,” he said. “It’s a government thing.”

I have highlighted the parts I think important by bolding them.

This is not an ideological based movement, then: it is not tied to a party, nor class, nor to any single sub-part of America.

From a previous Rochester Tea Party on 11 MAR 2009 we have this from Chuck Simmins:

And from the Sarasota Tea Party on 28 FEB 2009 we get these images featuring Frances Rice:

This is not a standard politically backed, demographically centered demonstration as this happens in more than just 'hot bed' campuses, more than just a 'disenfranchised' group, and more than one geographic area.  Looking at Instapundit and searching with 'tea party' the hits and images demonstrate that this is not a top-down, activist led effort.  There are some trying to advise the Tea Parties on what they should do next, but this is not a centralized effort: it cannot be led although it can find advocates and spokesmen.  By having no dividing line of class, gender, race, politics or any other things save being aggrieved Americans this can be called an organic outgrowth of society.  This is a natural expression of society that is now moving forward via individuals who adhere to a set of common principles that they rarely feel the need to state.

This does have scholarship behind it, in the writings of Walter Russell Mead (article cache by Steven Den Beste):

A principal explanation of why Jacksonian politics are so poorly understood is that Jacksonianism is less an intellectual or political movement than an expression of the social, cultural and religious values of a large portion of the American public. And it is doubly obscure because it happens to be rooted in one of the portions of the public least represented in the media and the professoriat. Jacksonian America is a folk community with a strong sense of common values and common destiny; though periodically led by intellectually brilliant men—like Andrew Jackson himself—it is neither an ideology nor a self-conscious movement with a clear historical direction or political table of organization. Nevertheless, Jacksonian America has produced—and looks set to continue to produce—one political leader and movement after another, and it is likely to continue to enjoy major influence over both foreign and domestic policy in the United States for the foreseeable future.

By being unaligned to the elite class and centering on a societal based value set, the Tea Party movement is a description of how Jacksonian America manifests itself.  This is not a party of a 'vision' based movement but one that is inherently based on the individual, individualism and seeking to have government accountable to society, not dictate to it.

Mr. Den Beste would examine this in regards to how law and international law are two different things, but have similar needs due to what they are:

The rule of law works within our nation because it is enforced by police and the courts. The rule of international law works because we're willing to fight when others ignore it if we think the issues involved are sufficiently important.

By Jacksonian lights, no rule of law works without the threat of force, and if the threat of force is removed then lawbreakers will come out of the woodwork. And sometimes they'll appear anyway, which is why war will always be with us and why good Jacksonians make sure that their nation always remains militarily strong.

Having police and courts doesn't prevent crime, but it does give us the ability to deal with it. By the same token having a strong military doesn't prevent the need for war, but it does give us a better chance of winning when the time comes. Nobody wants a war, but if you have to fight one it's much better to win it than to lose it.

And the police do deter some crime, and having a strong military does prevent some threats of war. Jacksonians are deeply practical; perfect solutions aren't possible and this one is the best available to us.

While it's true that some degree of international regulation is required in order for trade and other international dealings to take place, Jacksonians are always suspicious of such regulations because they want to make sure that the regulators don't have an ulterior motive, and to make sure that everyone is playing by the same rules. The situation works because it is subject to constant scrutiny and because we don't go overboard relying on it.

This object of scrutiny of the law and law makers to ensure that regulation is not putting forth a partisan 'cause' but serving all of society is at the sense of fair play for Jacksonians.  A bit further on Mr. Den Beste examines this:

Jacksonians don't have any interest in spreading their philosophy around the world. It isn't evangelistic; indeed, the entire concept of trying to actively spread that or any other philosophy around the world is deeply repugnant to pure Jacksonians. Jacksonians are anti-imperialistic.

The whole point of Jacksonianism is "You leave me alone and I'll leave you alone. You play fair with me and I'll play fair with you. But if you fuck with me, I'll kill you."

To Jacksonians, it is entirely possible to create an adequate world framework of consistent and fair behavior, sufficient to support trade, through vigilance and the threat of reprisal (military or otherwise). Going beyond that to a world government as such is neither necessary, desirable nor even possible, and the best case is where there is as little international framework and governance as can be: only the bare minimum required but no more. Anything beyond that will eventually be abused by someone, so it's better to do without it.

Famously Jacksonians will put up with a lot on the civil side of things, but once the idea of fair play is tossed out the window by a government (foreign or domestic) the retribution is definitively *not* proportional.  A minor final ill will bring you conflict if the ills before that have not been addressed and built up without redress.  Mead addresses this in the international law area, but due to the way Jacksonians view all law, what is seen for that venue holds true for the national part, too:

Given the moral gap between the folk community and the rest of the world—and given that other countries are believed to have patriotic and communal feelings of their own, feelings that similarly harden once the boundary of the folk community is reached—Jacksonians believe that international life is and will remain both anarchic and violent. The United States must be vigilant and strongly armed. Our diplomacy must be cunning, forceful and no more scrupulous than anybody else’s. At times, we must fight pre-emptive wars. There is absolutely nothing wrong with subverting foreign governments or assassinating foreign leaders whose bad intentions are clear. Thus, Jacksonians are more likely to tax political leaders with a failure to employ vigorous measures than to worry about the niceties of international law.

Political leaders, then, are those who must address the problems faced by society without putting society in jeopardy by its actions.  This is, at its base, how Jacksonians view the common effort of representative government - it is to be held to account for those things it does, expected to protect society and secure our livelihood without becoming deeply entrenched in intrusive means to 'guide' society.  Society needs no guidance, free people will guide themselves perfectly well with a minimum of overhead.  Politicians have been both seen at Tea Parties and been the pointed object of Tea Parties.  The reason that no politician can step up to LEAD Tea Parties, as a whole, is that attending them is a survival instinct: this is a movement that when it gets a pointy end to it, that end will be pointed at those in power.  In the old '60s radicalist parlance, politicians realize they are part of the problem... and the radicals realize that, to this movement, so are they. 

That is also why we do not see puppets, people on stilts or effigies being burnt.  A movement of aggrieved society does not waste its time on showmanship and if things have to be burnt or put up in a noose, it is better to do so to the source of the problem, not some paper representation of it.  It is deeply offensive to strike at a home-made symbol until you are actually ready to do something about it, then you don't need the symbol any more as it is the thing, itself, that is now the object of ire and you are now prepared with your fellow citizens to remove it.  In a sense of fair play if you really mean to bring down the system, then bring it down and then society can judge you for your actions.  Don't waste time and energy on the frivolity of being outraged until that outrage can gain an outlet that is productive in its work.  Jacksonians realize that 'burn, baby, burn' is a call to destroy our heritage, ancestry and the good works of our forefathers and foremothers.  That is sickening, and shows only appreciation for your petty beliefs and no honor to the hard work that has gotten you to where you can have them.

The honored symbol of this spirit is the rattle snake and 'Don't Tread On Me'.  Like the rattlesnake you get one, final warning before it strikes and that warning is for you to back off, move away, don't bother it any more or you shall pay the price.  When you hear that sound you freeze in your tracks and your next step should be one of the most wary of your life as you know it can lead to an automatic reaction faster than you can ever move.  To get to this point in US society we have seen government used to push private, partisan and splintering causes into the 'mainstream' via law.  The deep intrusion into what the individual must have to determine what is right for themselves is not only deeply offensive, but builds up grievances over time.  The most supreme right one can have is to scandalize the neighbors and to be scandalized by them: when government steps in to tell you that you may not judge that behavior and, indeed, must support it as a 'minority' of one class or another, then that is seen as striking against society.  Individual attacks may be minor, but their cumulative effect is major.  To now see a cohort in society that is making society broke to fund ill-founded 'good things' that should be the province of the individual ALONE is not something that builds up over night, but over decades.  With more and more power vested in those that we do not know being used to  crony and crooked ends to satisfy slim parts of society, the mass of society examines this and slowly builds its level of disagreement.

President Jackson quite clearly stated why such distrust comes to the forefront the Bank Veto Message of 10 JUL 1832:

The Government of the United States have no constitutional power to purchase lands within the States except "for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings," and even for these objects only "by the consent of the legislature of the State in which the same shall be." By making themselves stockholders in the bank and granting to the corporation the power to purchase lands for other purposes they assume a power not granted in the Constitution and grant to others what they do not themselves possess. It is not necessary to the receiving, safe-keeping, or transmission of the funds of the Government that the bank should possess this power, and it is not proper that Congress should thus enlarge the powers delegated to them in the Constitution.

When the American people see Congress using money to support ill-use of taxpayer funds to back loans to those who cannot repay them, and then get into a crony support system with those banks and offices backing them, we see a deep chasm between what government is told it CAN do and what it CAN'T do.  He clearly states the case of why having government support such an institution (in this case the National Bank) is not a good thing:

Is there no danger to our liberty and independence in a bank that in its nature has so little to bind it to our country? The president of the bank has told us that most of the State banks exist by its forbearance. Should its influence become concentered, as it may under the operation of such an act as this, in the hands of a self-elected directory whose interests are identified with those of the foreign stockholders, will there not be cause to tremble for the purity of our elections in peace and for the independence of our country in war? Their power would be great whenever they might choose to exert it; but if this monopoly were regularly renewed every fifteen or twenty years on terms proposed by themselves, they might seldom in peace put forth their strength to influence elections or control the affairs of the nation. But if any private citizen or public functionary should interpose to curtail its powers or prevent a renewal of its privileges, it can not be doubted that he would be made to feel its influence.

This brings out the basic level of distrust that the American people have with such powerful institutions run by and for government ends:

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society-the farmers, mechanics, and laborers-who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government. There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing. In the act before me there seems to be a wide and unnecessary departure from these just principles.

In hearing people say they are working from 'just principles' they should state them clearly, succinctly and not assume they are understood by another.  The just principles of government are to treat all equally under the law and to play no favorites in enriching one class or group over another, nor to bring down one or another by taxation as that is also destructive to society.  Society can put up with inequality of results so long as there is equality at the starting point of all men being mortal and gaining no titles or privileges beyond what they can garner from family or make themselves.  Equality of talent or outcome assures an impoverishment of society and its individuals as no one is allowed to achieve and demonstrate excellence in ability.

That deep sense of fairness amongst the American people has been pushed hard by 'minority rights' when, as given in the Constitution, all rights not given to government are held by the States and the people and need NO backing save to curb the abuses of them.  When a 'positivist' right is asserted by a small group and is then expected to be accepted by the entirety of society without having shown just cause as to why those rights are good and why they should be upheld beyond what the individual can do, society is then subject to injustice of support for some rights over others.  Pushing that through by law or legislation is not the same as having it be an organically recognized outgrowth of society but an appendage to it that has not passed the trials and tribulations of internal review by society before it can even reach the level of government.

For this concept Jacksonians go to the heart of the American Revolution as it was most clearly stated just before the Declaration, and which fully backs it.  The entry lines to that work:

Some writers have so confounded society with government,
as to leave little or no distinction between them;
whereas they are not only different, but have different origins.
Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness;
the former promotes our POSITIVELY by uniting our affections,
the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one
encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions.
The first a patron, the last a punisher.

Thomas Paine, Common Sense (via the Gutenberg Project).

Pushing government to do more than ensure that your rights are not infringed upon is contrary to building society.  To build society one must demonstrate the use and utility of what you are pushing, that it does not seek to alter society and that such changes do not need the backing of society, just toleration by it.  As individuals we are a tolerant people, and can be scandalized by  much so long as no lives are lost and there is no cost incurred to society or individual liberty put at threat.  Equal protection under the law is the foundation of how society has determined it wishes to work.  Via government some few positive aspects of society are given shelter by government and protection, so as to allow individuals to support themselves.  When the law goes beyond that, to uphold that some rights are better than others, some people better than others for things that are perfectly allowable in civil society, such as bias, the law goes too far.  We agree to equal treatment for all citizens in our common endeavors in the market place and set up rules to ensure that mere bias does not become discrimination and bar to that market place.  When individuals don't want to be offended by other individuals, that is asking far too much of the law and far too little of yourself to understand those who have bias and either confront it or not as the case may be.  When only your sensitivities are offended, your recourse is to either suck it up or pass it off, not to make it a legal argument that people may not have ANY bias in their lives.  Bias is a natural outcome of the human condition: acting on it to remove the rights of others is an action that cannot be tolerated for those things society holds in common.  Seeking to make government take the money of the people to pay for the sensitivities of the few then starts building up, in a step-wise approach, the movement towards the rattlesnake.

Once that one more step in the wrong direction is taken, then the all-out confrontation begins.  Any time society feels at threat and those that govern it feel free to put down things contrary to society that enriches themselves and their brown-nosed cohort, you rarely get a chance to step back.  The sense of fair play when pushed to breaking is brittle, and while the last offense can be tiny, the reaction to it is huge and overwhelming.  When pushed to that limit, society then reacts via those within it seeking to preserve society and recognize that government must act in accord TO society, not society TO government.  In WWII the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and got the timing of their Declaration of War wrong by just a bit, so that it arrived *after* the bombing, which is then seen as a sneak attack.  Timing is everything, and even a minute before is better than a minute after as the time after is now null and void of meaning in diplomacy.  As these interactions are seen as 'scale free' by Jacksonians, that is they do not have different measuring sticks at different sizes of analysis, then Nations are judged just the same as individuals and governments.  By not following established norm, protocol and giving fair warning, the attacker that does so is seen as dishonorable.  It does not matter if this is in a bar fight, sending police to go after politicians, or an attack on one Nation by another without first declaring war.  The response is the same: fight, fight all out, fight with everything you have and win or die trying.

The rattlesnake is a very social animal, as snakes go, keeping to dens that harbor many of their kin, especially when the winds blow cold.  The worry when hearing a rattlesnake is not just in the one you hear, but in its kin that are nearby that are not to be disturbed.  The famous saying of the US soldier at war is simple, plain and direct:

"We did not start this war.  But we sure, as hell, will end it."

The Tea Parties are the rattle of the rattlesnake, the warning that you have gotten far too close for comfort and now need to back off and make amends and show that you are, indeed, backing off.

If Congress rescinds the bailouts, removes the CRA and asinine 'regulations' that mandate that private lenders must give to those who cannot repay such loans, and divests itself of these corrupt organs that have caused so much woe, then the positive step away from the rattlesnake will be done.  Unfortunately those that feel so brave to 'help' society don't know when they are about to get the fury of it.  And yet they have been warned.